Its spring! Day by day, temperatures are rising – in more ways than one! A glance at the news or social media will tell you that many of our neighbours are facing rapidly rising energy bills, and household debt.
In a sign of how desperate things are getting, as I am writing (the end of April), energy commentators are celebrating the fact that the energy shock caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been mitigated, in the UK at least, by increased imports of gas from America. This will mean that energy price rises in the autumn might only be a few hundred pounds as opposed to the over £1000 forecast in March. For households already in energy debt, or doing without luxuries that we all take for granted to pay their fuel bills, this is small comfort.
In this mad world, hats off to the Scottish Government for their Home Heating Fund. At the time of writing, over 50 HEAT Project clients have been referred to this scheme, with over £22,000 of energy debt now written off.
The scheme is continuing until funds run out – I cannot guarantee that it will still be running by the time you read this.
In any case, if you want to cut your energy bills by any means, we are here to help. Thanks to the Energy Redress Scheme, we are still able to offer free, impartial, confidential and practical home energy advice.
We can’t solve the energy crisis, but we might be able to help, just a little.
By Martin Mathers